The authors tested a series of models linking spanking and child social-emotional outcomes using a sample of 3,870 families from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing study. Spanking was measured by the number of times the focal child was spanked by the mother at ages 1, 3, and 5. Internalizing and externalizing symptoms were assessed using the Child Behavior Checklist at ages 3 and 5. Child…
In this study, information on small to modest lottery wins from the British Household Panel Survey (N = 2,563) was used to investigate the effect of income on separation. The analysis demonstrated that money matters within relationships. Lottery wins temporarily reduced the odds of separation after men won. Men spent more on leisure and became more satisfied with their leisure time and social …
This study contributes to the emerging demographic literature on same-sex couples by comparing the level and correlates of union stability among 4 types of couples: (a) male same-sex cohabitation, (b) female same-sex cohabitation, (c) different-sex cohabitation, and (d) differentsex marriage. The author analyzed data from 2 British birth cohort studies: the National Child Development Study (N =…
The authors investigated how the reported happiness of married and cohabiting individuals varies cross-nationally with societal gender beliefs and religious context. They used the 2002 International Social Survey Programme data from 27 countries (N = 36, 889) and specified hierarchical linear models with macro – micro level interactions in order to examine how the social – institutional con…
This study examined how the division of household labor changed as a function of marital duration and whether within-couple variation in spouses’ relative power and availability were linked to within-couple variation in the division of labor. On 4 occasions over 7 years, 188 stably married couples reported on their housework activities using daily diaries. Multilevel models revealed that wive…
Using data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study (N = 4,898), this study investigated how the share, correlates, transition patterns, and duration of 3-generation households vary by mother’s relationship status at birth. Nine percent of married mothers, 17% of cohabiting mothers, and 45% of single mothers lived in a 3-generation family household at the time of the child’s bir…
The authors review the literature on sibling relationships in childhood and adolescence, starting by tracing themes from foundational research and theory and then focusing on empirical research during the past 2 decades. This literature documents siblings’ centrality in family life, sources of variation in sibling relationship qualities, and the significance of siblings for child and adolesce…
This study investigated how core selfevaluations relate to work – family (and family – work) conflict and burnout. Drawing from a sample of 289 police officers and civilian staff who were either married or living in a union as common-law partners, this study advances an empirical integration of work – family and core self-evaluations research. The results suggested that even when work, n…
Guided by a risk and resilience framework, this study used a prospective longitudinal, multiplereporter design to examine how social support from a mother figure during pregnancy interacted with Mexican-origin adolescent mothers’ self-esteem to inform their parenting efficacy when their children were 10 months old. Using reports of perceived social support by adolescent mothers (Mage =16.24,…
Numerous studies comparing patients’ endof- life health care treatment preferences with their surrogates’ reports of those preferences indicate that partners do not know one another’s treatment preferences: Random guesses are just as likely as surrogate choices to match the patients’ preferences. The present study uses the empathic accuracy model and the assumed similarity model to shed…
Drawing on data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, this study examined the impact of parental financial assistance on young adults’ relationships with parents and well-being. Conditional change models were estimated to evaluate the effects of parental financial assistance reported in Wave 3 (ages 18 – 28) and Wave 4 (ages 24 – 34) of the study. The results (Ns rang…
Child health is fundamental to well-being and achievement throughout the life course. Prior research has demonstrated strong associations between familial socioeconomic resources and children’s health outcomes, with especially poor health outcomes among disadvantaged youth who experience a concentration of risks, yet little is known about the influence of maternal health as a dimension of ris…
This report presents some reflections on and experiences from a cross-national qualitative research project about within-household finances conducted by sociologists from Germany, Spain, Sweden, and the United States. The authors focus first on the challenges of making qualitative cross-national comparisons and argue for the importance of establishing a common understanding of methodological an…
Over the last 3 decades, economic models have been developed that recognize that potentially conflicting interests may shape household decisions and the sharing of resources within families. This article provides an overview of how decision making within households has been modeled within economics, presents the main benefits and limitations of those models, and critically assesses their useful…
The authors examine how contributions to household resources, indicated by employment status, influence satisfaction with household income (SWHI) for members of male/female couples. They take changes in SWHI, which may differ within couples, to indicate changes in perceived benefits from their common household income, benefits that can go beyond individual consumption. Using data from the Brit…
Research into intrahousehold finances challenges key assumptions about the family as a unitary whole, investigates the extent of sharing within it, examines mechanisms of control and allocation of resources, and reveals the personalized nature of different monies. This article presents an overview of research on within-household distribution (understood as both outcome and process). It discuss…
Surveys differ in the measurement of nonstandard work, such that some surveys require respondents to indicate whether they work either a standard or a nonstandard schedule, whereas others allow respondents to indicate that they work both types of schedules. We test whether these measurement decisions influence the estimated prevalence of maternal nonstandard work, using data from two sources: t…
This study combined demographic and institutional explanations of women’s employment, describing and explaining the degree to which mothers in industrialized societies are less likely to be employed than women without children. A large number of cross-sectional surveys were pooled, covering 18 Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development countries, 192,484 observations, and 305 cou…
Using data from the National Study of Daily Experiences, the authors examined racial differences in exposure and reactivity to daily stressors involving family members. Respondents included African American and European American adults age 34 to 84 (N = 1, 931) who participated in 8 days of daily interviews during which they reported on daily stressors, affect, and physical health symptoms. The…
Children in traditional families (i.e., married, 2 biological parents) tend to do better than their peers in nontraditional families. An exception to this pattern appears to be children from same-sex parent families. Children with lesbian mothers or gay fathers do not exhibit the poorer outcomes typically associated with nontraditional families. Studies of same-sex parent families, however, hav…
Fathers’ absence is a pattern that shows intergenerational continuity, most notably within disadvantaged populations. The process whereby this pattern is repeated across generations is not well understood. Using data from the Concordia Longitudinal Risk Project, the authors investigated pathways between fathers’ absence in 1 generation and the experience of fathers’ absence by their chil…
Using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997, a nationally representative cohort of young adults, the authors analyzed relationship type at the time of a first birth (N = 4,044). More than 10% of births were to a postconception cohabiting household (cohabitations that were initiated between conception and birth), a higher proportion of births than those born to postconception …
This investigation integrated vignette and survey design to study how sons’ reduced availability and daughters’ increased contributions to parents influenced Chinese rural elders’ gendered filial expectations, measured with their beliefs about obligations of a vignette daughter and a vignette son to their postsurgery parent. The sample included 802 elders from 2001, 2003, and 2006 waves o…
The authors evaluated the extent to which the short-term effect of late life widowhood on parent – child relationships is moderated by 5 personality traits—Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Emotional Stability, and Openness to Experience—and how these interactive effects differ by gender. Data were from the Changing Lives of Older Couples Study (N = 1,532). The results indic…
Adolescents who share meals with their parents score better on a range of well-being indicators. Using 3 waves of the National Longitudinal Survey of Adolescent Health (N = 17,977), the authors assessed the causal nature of these associations and the extent to which they persist into adulthood. They examined links between family dinners and adolescent mental health, substance use, and delinque…
This research examined the impact of networkparticipation, social support, and social control on the violence victimization of female marriage migrants by a spouse. Data were from a household survey of 492 cross-border and 379 local married couples in Hong Kong in 2007. The findings indicated that female marriage migrants were more vulnerable to spousal violence and more socially isolated, comp…
The authors integrate theoretical work on the performance of gender with a life course perspective to frame an analysis of in-depth interviews with 17 long-term married couples. The findings indicated that couples’ sexual experiences are characterized by change over time, yet that change is shaped by the intersection of gender and age. Midlife couples (ages 50 – 69) were distressed by chang…
This study investigated how early, ‘‘on-time,’’ and late home leavers differed in their relations to parents in later life. A life course perspective suggested different pathways by which the time spent in the parental home may set the stage for intergenerational solidarity in aging families. Using fixed-effects models with data from the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe…
Understanding the role of social policies in intergenerational transfers from old to young people is especially important in times of population aging. This paper focuses on the influences of social expenditures and social services on financial support and on practical help from older parents to their adult children based on the first two waves from the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement i…
Secondary respondent data are underutilized because researchers avoid using these data in the presence of substantial missing data. The authors reviewed, evaluated, and testedsolutions to this problem. Five strategies of dealing with missing partner data were reviewed: (a) complete case analysis, (b) inverse probability weighting, (c) correction with a Heckman selection model, (d) maximum likel…
Same-sex marriage has received much scholarly attention in the United States in the past decade. Yet we know little about how samesex couples experience marriage. In this article, I present findings from in-depth interviews with 32 legally married gay men in Iowa. I focus on their experiences with families of origin and investigate the legitimating potential of same-sex marriage. The men had h…
Family scholars have focused on the onset of sexual activity early in the life course, but little is known about the cessation of sexual activity in relationships in later life. We use event-history analysis techniques and logistic regression to identify the correlates of sexual inactivity among older married men and women. We analyze data for 1,502 married people from the National Social Life,…
The consequences of divorce are pronounced for parents of young children, and cohabitation dissolution is increasing in this population and has important implications. The mental health consequences of union dissolution were examined, by union type and parental gender, using the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study (n = 1,998 for mothers and 1,764 for fathers). Overall, cohabitation and m…
Previous research has mainly focused on the persistent direct influence of early life contexts on young adult socioeconomic attainment, and less is known about intraindividual processes that are responsible for this persistent influence. The present study, using genetically informed longitudinal, prospective data from a nationally representative sample (Add Health), attempted to fill this gap b…
This study examined the association between typical parental work hours (including nonemployed parents) and children’s behavior in two-parent heterosexual families. Child behavior was measured by the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL) at ages 5, 8, and 10 in the Western Australian Pregnancy Cohort (Raine) Study (N=4,201 child-year observations). Compared to those whose fathers worked fewer hou…
The literature is divided on the issue of what matters for adolescents’ well-being, with one approach focusing on quality and the other on routine family time. Using the experience sampling method, a unique form of time diary, and survey data drawn from the 500 Family Study (N = 237 adolescents with 8,122 observations), this study examined the association between family time and adolescents�…
The authors investigated variations in reciprocity and the impact of reciprocity on well-being in a West African society. They hypothesized that household size and income diversity encourage reciprocity, which in turn enhances subjective well-being. In empirical testing of these hypotheses the authors used the data of the Core Welfare Indicators Questionnaire of Ghana, a national sample of hou…
Previous research suggests that household tasks prohibit women from unfolding their full earning potential by depleting their work effort and limiting their time flexibility. The present study investigated whether this relationship can explain the wage gap between mothers and nonmothers in West Germany. The empirical analysis applied fixed-effects models and used self-reported information on…
The family stress model posits that contextual stressors, such as neighborhood danger, negatively influence youth adjustment, including internalizing symptoms, via disruptions in parenting and family processes. The current study examined a culturally and contextually modified family stress model in a diverse sample of Mexican-origin fathers and their children (N = 463) from the southwestern Un…
The authors examined whether nonresident fathers provide informal support to their children and whether support stops if their expartner goes on to have a child with a new man. A logistic regression analysis of longitudinal survey and administrative data for 434 women who received welfare in Wisconsin showed that fathers are less likely to provide informal support when their ex-partner has a ch…
In Egypt, kin relations have been governed by a patriarchal contract, which defines expectations for intergenerational support along gendered lines. Social changes may be disrupting these customs and bringing attention to the ways gender may influence intergenerational support in rapidly changing contexts. Using data from 4,465 parent – child dyads in Ismailia, Egypt, we examined whether inte…
The authors investigated intergenerational support exchanges in relation to young adults’ life course status. In a sample of 2,022 young adults (ages 18 – 34 years) in The Netherlands, single young adults reported receiving more advice from parents than married young adults, and those with children of their own received more practical support. Married young adults and young adults with chil…
This article addresses open questions about the nature and meaning of the positive association between marriage and well-being, namely, the extent to which it is causal, shared with cohabitation, and stable over time. We relied on data from the National Survey of Families and Households (N = 2,737) and a modeling approach that controls for fixed differences between individuals by relating union…
Employed parents perceive a time squeeze even as trends from the 1960s show they are spending more time with their children. Work conditions (e.g., hours and schedule control) would seem to affect both parents’ time with children and perceived time squeeze, but most studies rely on cross-sectional data that do not establish causality. The authors examined the effects of the introduction of a…
This study examined within-family stability in parents’ differential treatment of siblings from adolescence to young adulthood and the effect of differential treatment in young adulthood on grown siblings’ relationship quality. The author used longitudinal data on parent – child and sibling relations from the sibling sample of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (N=1,470…
Although children’s provision of family assistance is a common routine, little is understood about the day-to-day variability that may exist in children’s assistance behaviors. Guided by a family systems framework, the current study examined whether Mexican American adolescents’ provision of family assistance was contingent on daily maternal need. Adolescents (N=354, 49% males, Mage =14.9…
This study explored how health, wealth, and family ties shape older cohabitors’ chances of marrying or separating. Drawing on rational choice and exchange theories, the author argues these factors affect women and men differently because the rewards, alternatives, and barriers of later-life union formation differ by gender. The study used panel data from the 1998 – 2006 Health and Retiremen…
Literature from multiple disciplines suggests that women who are obese during early adulthood may accumulate social and physiological impediments to childbearing across their reproductive lives. This led the authors to investigate whether obese young women have different lifetime childbearing experiences than leaner peers by analyzing data from 1,658 female participants in the 1979 National Lon…
Substantial research concludes that most Americans want to have ‘‘at least 1 boy and 1 girl,’’ yet few have empirically explored what drives this preference. The author used nationally representative data from the National Survey of Families and Households (N =5,544) and generalized ordered logistic regression to evaluate 3 potential psychosocial frameworks motivating the mixed-sex id…
This study examined the psychological wellbeing of fathers and father – child relationships in families with a 7-year-old child conceived by donor insemination. Twenty-four donor insemination families and comparison groups of 25 egg donation and 32 unassisted-conception families were assessed using a standardized interview and questionnaires administered to the father, and father – child dy…